The magical trappings fashioned of light, through which the Phaerie Lord had controlled her, had fallen away from her head when Iscalda had shed him from her back, so she was free to run unencumbered. And run she did—until the forest itself stopped her flight. All at once a narrow stream, screened until the last split second by the low branches of the trees, appeared in front of her. Unprepared, Iscalda gathered herself in a clumsy half-leap.
Something hit her across the forehead with stunning force. There was a sharp, wrenching pain and her vision exploded into light as hot blood poured down her face. Blinded by the salty fluid streaming into her eyes, she hit the ground hard on the other side and her foot plunged down into a hidden space between two roots, and twisted beneath her with an agonizing jerk. Her momentum threw her forward and she went crashing to her knees, to flail to a floundering halt with her forelegs scrabbling for purchase in the soft mud of the stream bank and her hindquarters in the water.
The white mare lay there spent, until her thoughts began to seep gradually back through the panic that had clouded her mind. The shock of her fall had brought her back to herself. Though she knew, following her previous confinement in animal form, that human thought and memory did not eventually vanish, as was commonly believed, it was difficult to battle the strong equine instincts—especially when danger threatened.
Iscalda retained enough clarity of thought to recognize her own periclass="underline" at present, she herself, not Hellorin, was her chiefest foe. What had she done to her face? What if she had broken a leg? Iscalda tried to blink the blood out of her eyes until she had achieved blurred and bleary vision. With considerable difficulty she managed to struggle to her feet on the fourth attempt, and stood there panting and trembling with her head hanging low.—There was a stabbing pain around the fetlock of her near foreleg where she had landed awry. Was it broken? Iscalda had no idea, but she could not put her foot to the ground.
Feeling sick with pain, the mare turned awkwardly on three legs and hobbled into the stream. She stood there impatiently while the icy water numbed some of the throbbing agony from her lame foreleg, and wondered what to do next.—Hellorin would still be looking for her, she was sure. In her human form, she had known such men as he. His wounded vanity would never allow him to let her go free—no more than her own pride would ever permit her recapture. Whatever happened, Iscalda would not give in. If she could no longer run, at least she could still hide. If she could only get under cover before the Phaerie found her ...
Not without regret, Iscalda hauled herself stiffly out of tile soothing water and headed into the shadowy world beneath the trees, seeking a safe place to rest. It seemed to take forever as she blundered, three-legged, through the bushes, attempting to hold her injured limb up out of the way. She made painfully slow progress; racing the threat of discovery, racing her exhaustion and the increasing agony in her leg; racing the growing terror that threatened to expunge her reason; racing the sinking moon that was plunging all too quickly toward the horizon. She must reach a place of safety before the absolute darkness that would follow moonset, or she stood little chance of finding a haven at all.
When she finally reached a suitable location, she was so spent that she scarcely recognized it for what it was. There was no water here, but save where she had entered, the narrow clearing was protected on three sides by a thicket of thorny brambles and overshadowed by the sweeping boughs of trees.—For the first time that night, Iscalda knew she could stop running away, and could rest at last, if only for a little while. Gratefully, the mare folded her aching legs beneath her. At first, however, sleep evaded her. She had escaped—but what of her fellow-Xandim, doomed to live out the rest of their lives in servitude and bondage? Iscalda blew softly through her nose—the nearest, in this shape, that she could come to a sigh. It would have been kinder by far if this imprisonment in equine shape did entail all loss of human memory, she thought. As it was, they were doomed to live out their lives as beasts, forever at war with their animal selves, and tormented by the memories of what they once had been. Iscalda was glad that in this form, it was impossible to weep. It was a relief to gave way at last to her weariness, and let the deep, deep waters of exhausted slumber close over her.
Iscalda woke in the darkness, smelling wolf. With all her instincts screaming an alarm, she scrambled to her feet—and fell heavily to one side as her injured leg, forgotten in sleep, collapsed beneath her. Frantically she struggled upright once more, pitting the agony in her foreleg against the more urgent imperative of survival. There was a movement in the bushes, and she was drowning in the smell of wolf, wolf, wolf...
Iscalda reared, smashing down her good foreleg to maim and kill—and threw herself to one side with a bone-wrenching jerk, almost falling again but pulling herself upright at the last second with a tremendous effort of will.—Her heart was racing like the hooves of a runaway horse. Lowering her head, she peered down at her adversary and exhaled on a snort of disgust at her own stupidity. Wolf indeed! Had she been in her human form she would have laughed at herself.
The deadly predator that had scared her out of her wits was a cub so tiny that she had almost blown him away with one snort. The pathetic little creature was shivering violently with cold, and as it noticed her, it began to whimper with hunger. Iscalda’s ears flicked forward curiously. She wondered where its parents were—a question that also concerned her own survival. Nowhere near, that was for certain—not when the poor cub was crying like that. Had they been killed in the fire? Or had they survived, and were they searching even now for their lost offspring? Her first impulse, to kill the creature, had been the most sensible—so what had made her pull aside at the last moment? Despite her natural equine aversion to the carnivore, Iscalda couldn’t help feeling sorry for the lost baby. It reminded her of Aurian’s son, little Wolf ...—Iscalda stiffened, and looked closer. But no—it couldn’t be! Wolf had been left safely behind at Wyvernesse, with his lupine foster-parents and the Nightrunners to protect him. What had happened to Aurian’s adult wolves? Why would they have brought him here, into danger? Why had they left him alone and helpless? No—it must be some other cub. But even as the denial went through her head, she knew it was Wolf indeed—she remembered the flash of white beneath his chin, and the way that one pointed little ear turned up, and the other down. Also Iscalda recognized him deep down, in a way that would have been almost impossible for a non-shape-shifter to explain. Somewhere behind the appearance of the animal, a human personality was concealed, and Iscalda could recognize it as a calling of like to like.